Dark Reign
by TheDirtyDan
Summary: A regular day for Danny Phantom turns into a journey to save his universe and others from destruction. Dropped into an apocalyptic world eight years from present day, Danny must team-up with other heroes from across the multiverse to save their homes and stop the machinations of God-Emperor Cipher. (GRAND CROSSOVER: INSPIRED BY STORY EVENTS FROM MARVEL COMICS)


**Disclaimer: Don't own any of the shows, movies, comics, video games, and so forth in here, and never will. Sucks, but oh well. On with the show.**

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DARK REIGN

INTERLUDE: THE END OF EVERYTHING

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_I know what it's like to lose._

_To stand on top of the world and feel like a king… and watch it all get flushed down the toilet by a bunch of fleshbags._

_Centuries of hidden warnings, years of subtle influence and machinations, and a summer full of watching a family's drama was worth for nothing._

_The fleshbags had beaten me; they had outplayed the trickster, and rendered me without a body to live in. They even took away my mental projection form with their last gambit._

_I was forced to watch them celebrate to my defeat, eat and drink and party to my humiliation, and defile my stone body with graffiti. I couldn't scream, I couldn't close my eye, nor could I call upon my powers to wipe them off the plane of existence. _

_Instead, all I could do was… nothing._

_Though I was able to recall some parts of my being that I had left imprinted in the minds of those whose bodies I possessed, my powers were still limited. I could only do so little, and I was only able to create a rift that would pull in-and-out random objects at will. While good for pulling chairs out from under Pine Tree's smug face, it did little to make up for the overwhelming sense of defeat I was going through._

_With nothing left, I left this universe and journeyed through the barriers connecting this one to the rest of them. To the Multiverse._

_Thus, I found myself floating aimlessly through an endless abyss of bright flashes and colors without a plan, without a body… without a purpose._

_For a moment, I feared that this would be my final fate._

_And that's when I felt it. During my sightless journey, I sensed a power greater than any I had ever encountered in my entire existence. Even the powers of the gods couldn't compete with it._

_Tracking the power-source to another three-dimensional universe, I found the source of the cosmic energy emanating from a gauntlet in the possession of some teenager with powers in the supernatural. Normally, I'd be curious and want to make this kid's life a miserable hell, but I was more fascinated by the sheer power radiating from the gauntlet._

_And then I saw the kid throw the gauntlet up into the air… and fire some energy blast at it. Ah, shit._

_Knowing that this trick would alert any deity in the vicinity, I quickly created a simple tear in the fabric of reality, hastily called the gauntlet over to the hole, and voila! One reality-altering gauntlet gift-wrapped to little ol' me._

_Taking a moment to admire the gauntlet (though whoever crafted this thing had a flair for the dramatic, but who am I to judge?), I slipped it on and was OVERWHELMED by the power laying dormant inside it. Before I know it, the gauntlet had regurgitated enough cosmic energy to restore my beautiful, yellow, demonic self back to normal. I was as happy as a kid in a candy store, or a new-born demon in a room full of humans! The damn thing worked, and I sure wasn't going to let it out my sight._

_But there were others who didn't like the fact that I'd gotten ahold of this thing. Sure, it's fine when some goody two-shoes wants to bring back a dead puppy, but when I try to restore my body? They send a freakin' army at me!_

_Believe me, they came at me at full force._

_And I mean it when I say that they didn't hold back._

_Jehovah, Lucifer, Set, Odin, Ra, Rama, Mirage, Oberon, Zordon (that damn bobblehead), those weirdoes from the Magic High Commission or whatever, Vector Prime, The Guardian, etc._

_They even got some Xiaolin spirit, a half-naked albino who killed off the Olympians in his universe, and that creepy Spawn guy to join in on the brawl._

_But one-by-one, they all had to fall at some point._

_I can't exactly remember which one I killed first. Maybe Set? I don't care, either way… the few that managed to escape were lucky._

_I'm still finding chunks of deity parts all over me!_

_When all was said and done, I couldn't help but feel… alive._

_There I was, all two-dimensional and omnipotent standing over those who I tried to stay under the radar from._

_It was strange. Not even taking over Pine Tree and his uncle's bodies came close to what I was feeling._

_It reminded me that what happened in my universe would never occur again._

_I felt like I was on top of the world again! Only this time, I would make sure that I'd stay there this time. __**Forever.**_

_With the power of this gauntlet and its pretty little gems, I can pay a visit back to my old pals in Gravity Falls and then go on to terrorize the universe._

_But then I thought, 'Why stop at one universe? In fact, why not all of them?' After all, with the gods of the multiverse basically whipped by my new power, reality can be whatever I want._

_All with just a single snap of my fingers._

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_Universe 681:_

Amity Park, the most haunted city on Earth. A hotspot for paranormal activity, hundreds of tourists from all over the world come to see the sightings of ghosts and poltergeists terrorizing the streets during the daytime and night. However, the reason why Amity Park is so popular globally is because it is home to the young superhero who saved the world from the Disasteroid; Danny Phantom.

Or, as his family and friends know him as, Daniel Fenton.

The half-ghost teen was lying on top of a hill with his girlfriend, Sam Manson, currently enjoying her spot in Danny's arms. Danny smiled down at Sam, who notices and smiles back.

"Hey," she softly said. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"

Danny replies, "Not much. Just thinking about how cute you look when you're like that."

"Don't call me cute, Ghost-Boy." The smile on Sam's face overshadowed the goth girl's semi-serious voice.

"Ooooh, I'm so scared." Danny teased. "What's the "Big Bad Sam" going to do to the "World Savior"? Suck him into a Fenton Thermos?"

Sam hummed, cupping her chin in mock-thought.

"Oh, now that's just cold."

"Shut up," Sam laughed, smacking her boyfriend's chest. "Like I'd be able to do that without sparking an inter-national panic, or the feds sticking me in some deep dark government cell in Timbuktu."

"That, and you couldn't last a minute without your Ghost-Boy." Danny chuckled.

This time, it was Sam's turn to chuckle. "I don't know, Tucker does hold some governmental authority." She burst out laughing at the look on Danny's face.

"Wow, thanks Sam, I can always count on you." he sarcastically said with a frown.

"Oh, cheer up, Danny." Sam said, snuggling back into his arms. "Any normal girl would have to be as crazy as Plasmius to not take up the offer of a relationship with someone like you."

Danny paused, before shrugging. "Good thing that no one's a crazed fruit-loop like Plasmius was."

As Sam burst out laughing, Danny couldn't help but let his thoughts wander off from the present at the thought of his missing rival. It's been almost three months since the Disasteroid incident, and things have been basically quiet for the most part. Plasmius was still somewhere lost in space after his dad left him behind on Saturn, most of the normal ghosts he fought on a weekly basis called a truce with the half-ghost after saving the Earth and the Ghost Zone from annihilation, and regular crime was practically non-existent in Amity Park.

And yet, Danny couldn't help but feel... empty. For all the complaints he used to make last year about his life being stressful thanks to his superhero activities, he started to miss it. Like a lot. There wasn't no scheme of Vlad's to outwit anymore, no evasion of another one of Skulker's mad hunts, not even a good laugh whenever Box Ghost tried taking him on in a fight. Just attending school and patrolling the streets at night looking for something to happen.

"Hello! Earth to Phantom!"

Danny blinked at the hand being waved at his face, and smiled sheepishly at Sam. "S-sorry, what were you saying?"

"Typical," Sam scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Another classic "Brain-Dead Fenton Moment" from the master himself. That makes, what? Thirty-eight?"

"Thirty-seven." Danny corrected. "That time in Biology doesn't count. How was I suppose to know what the heart of a pig looked like? It's a heart, they're all the same!"

She scoffed again, this time with a hint of fondness in it. "You're impossible."

Danny smiled, and the two leaned forward to kiss in a tender embrace of love and unity. And for a moment, all of Danny Fenton's problems and the world around them fell away into nothingness.

And then the skies turned red.

"Uhh, please tell me that that's one of Tucker's stupid new laws," Sam asked, her eyes widening at the blood-red skies. When she received no response, she turned to face her boyfriend and gasped in alarm at the sight of Danny's trembling body. "Danny! Danny, what's wrong?" she reached over to place a hand of his shoulder and drew back at the feeling; he was ice-cold. "Danny, for god's sake, WAKE UP!"

She finished that off by delivering a hard smack across his cheek, which finally snapped the boy out of his trance. "Ow!" he cried out, raising a hand to his stinging cheek. "What did you do that for?

"Because you started freaking out on me, doofus," Sam replied, her tone angry yet worried too.

Danny looked back up at the sky, and felt his hands start to tremble. "Sam," he said stiffly, not even bothering to shout his motto as he turned into his half-ghost form. "We have to get out of here. Right now."

"No kidding," he heard her mutter sarcastically, but she didn't complain when he picked her up bridal-style, and rocketed into the air. The two flew across Amity Park at break-necking speeds, though everyone else was more focused on the skies' than their local superhero.

"So, what do you think it is, then?" Sam asked Danny, "Some kind of Ghost Zone invasion?"

"I don't know," Danny frowned, still feeling chills run through his body. "This doesn't seem like any ghosts' shtick that I've come across. Usually, they make some kind of big explosions to get attention."

"Classy," Sam said dryly. "So, until something blows up, we're in the dark about this. On the plus side, at least the skies are looking more pleasing to me."

"Of course you would say that."

A sudden beep from the Fenton Phone in Danny's ear caught his attention, and he answered it. "Go for Phantom."

"_Did you really just say that?"_ an older girl's voice deadpanned over the phone; his older sister, Jazz Fenton.

"Yeah. C'mon, it can't be that bad… is it?" he looked to Sam, who was giving him an unimpressed stare. "Damn."

"_Anyways, get yours and Sam's butts back home ASAP. Me, Mom and Dad, and Tucker are all here getting ready for whatever this thing is."_

"Got it."

The two teens quickly made it to FentonWorks before landing outside where Danny can turn back to normal. The two raced inside and headed down to the basement where they found the Fentons' and Tucker prepping themselves with anti-ghost gear.

"Oh, hi sweetie!" Maddie Fenton chirped happily, hoisting a bazooka-looking weapon over her shoulder. "Did you enjoy your date with Sammy?"

"Mom!" Danny whined, flushing at Sam's grinning face.

"Sorry, sport, but we need your help with this," Jack Fenton said, standing next to his wife. "Something like this happening could only be the work of ghosts!" he paused, before adding. "Or maybe the Canadians."

"Don't think it's the work of ghosts, guys," Tucker added from his spot at a nearby computer. "I'm picking up no signs of ghost activity all around Amity Park, and there's no readings coming off from the portal so the Ghost Zone's out of the equation."

He turned to pin the group with a deadly serious look. "I think this is the Canadians."

Paying no attention to his girlfriend smacking Tuck on the back of his head, Danny titled his head up to the ceiling, vividly picturing those blood-red skies again. If it wasn't the work of any ghost, then what could it be? The chills he'd been feeling were coming back again, and this time he couldn't stop them.

It was then that he felt it, a ghostly presence. His Ghost-Sense alerted him by way of a chill coming out of his mouth, and that caught everyone's attention. "Guys, I think we've got company incoming!"

But company did not come in the form of a uniquely-based ghost with powers, but with words ringing inside Danny's mind.

"_Danny Phantom, you have been chosen!"_

The half-ghost hero blinked. "Say what now?"

At that, everyone was startled by the sight of a portal opening behind the young hero and began sucking him in!

"Danny!" everyone cried out in unison, rushing to grab hold of the boy before he could disappear, but their efforts were for naught. The last sight they saw of Danny was the terrified look on his face before the portal winked out of existence.

"Wh-where did he go? What happened?!" Sam cried, before whirling around on Tucker, who scampered back at the sight of her enraged face. "You said that there weren't any readings of a ghost here!"

"Th-th-there wasn't!" Tucker croaked out. "Here, let me s—"

There was no warning. One moment, there was the Fentons and their closest allies trying to figure out what had happened to their beacon of light. The next, everything went white and absorbed them, the room, the city, the entire planet, the entire _universe—_

And then… there was nothing.

Save for the cackling of a mad demon floating in the empty void of what was the Multiverse.

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**AN: Welcome to the opening shots of Dark Reign. This little project of mine is inspired by a myriad of events that happened in the Marvel Comics for the past thirty-so years. I'm talking a mutated combination of Secret Wars (Both original and the 2015), Dark Reign (hence the title), Old Man Logan, and so much more. The reason why I'm doing this? You'll see~**

**Anyways, leave your thoughts in the comments and tell me how much of a piece of shit this story is! Always appreciate 'em!**


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